Background

A few years ago I conducted a two day seminar on staff selection in an Australian capital city. I used various games, case studies and role plays. They included simulations using both telephone and written applications.

Twenty experienced human resource professionals attended the workshop. One exercise required these people to assess five written applications for a job as training and development officer.

Process

Each participant was provided with a detailed case study background together with the five applications. Each written application was in a different format.

I divided the 20 people into 5 groups of 4. Each group had to rank the 5 applicants in order of preference. The participants were working from their own background and experience.

Outcomes

On the basis of these five written applications alone, two quite interesting outcomes occurred.

Sixteen of the twenty participants assumed that an applications signed "Sandy Salliforth" had been written by a woman. It was really written by a man with the nickname "Sandy". The job history provided clearly indicated the "Sandy" was male.
But the candidate rankings contained the biggest surprise.

One group ranked them

1. Smith 2. Jones 3. Williams 4.Salliforth 5.Brown

Another group ranked them

1. Brown 2. Salliforth 3. Williams 4. Jones 5. Smith

These people were experienced human resources professionals. They were very familiar and practiced in reading and ranking written applications. Yet 2 of the 5 groups ranked the candidates in reverse order.

Consequences

Most managers are under severe time and business pressures. They're not practiced in reading written applications. They probably haven't been thoroughly trained in selection techniques. Every job application they receive is from a candidate trying to present themselves as the perfect applicant. Can you imagine what's likely to happen when they're confronted with a pile of not 5, but 20 written applications?

Conclusion

Written applications are useful. But that's all. They can also be misleading and prejudicial. They take lots of time to read. Always screen candidates by phone before scheduling an interview.

Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leon_Noone

Getting Great Flexible Hour Jobs

Finding great flexible hour jobs is often harder and more frustrating work than the job itself. You are certain there are tons of job opportunities around you, but you have no clue where to find them. It takes all day to do walk-ins or call around to see who's hiring, and collecting applications can be very time consuming. And to stand a real chance of getting any results, you probably have to repeat the process for weeks.

After that, you have to fill out application after application by hand with the same information but in different boxes, adding to the frustration and eating up even more of your valuable time. When you're done, you have to go out again, return them, and likely do follow-up calls just to make sure someone is even looking them over.

You might think that this is the only process available to get a good hourly job, but with the help of the internet, this isn't the case anymore. Within a few minutes, you can browse through hundreds of local employers who are hiring. When you see some opportunities that you like, all you have to do is enter your information and you can send out a bunch of applications at once.

Any good job searching site will be free to sign up for, so there's nothing to lose. If you desire, you can even create a profile so that employers can find and contact you. This is the easiest that job hunting gets!

That's really all the information you need to be on your way to getting great flexible hour jobs! All that's left is learning what sites to use.

Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Roger

Should You Apply for Non-Advertised Jobs?

Are you in search of a new job? If you are and if you are like most job seekers, there is a good chance that you would turn to the internet, namely job posting websites, or to your local newspaper, namely the employment section. While these are the best ways to go about finding information on available jobs, there are many job seekers who choose to submit resumes or job applications to those who are not hiring. Before you start taking this approach, you will want to examine the pros and cons of doing so.

Before examining the pros and cons of submitting a job application or your resume to a company that is not hiring, you may be curious as to how you can go about doing so. When taking this approach, many job seekers use two different options. In today’s society, many businesses have online websites. These online websites may give the mailing address to the company in question. There are many job seekers who will submit their resumes to that address in hopes of seeing success. Others will simply mail in or drop off their resumes or job applications to local companies that they know the address to.

As for the pros and cons of applying for non-advertised jobs, you will find that there are a number of pros or plus sides to doing so. One of the pros or plus sides to submitting your resume or a job application to a company that does not advertise or state that they have any current job openings is the jump start that you can give yourself. Many companies will choose to takeout job advertisements when they have open positions, but others will just go through their current pile of resumes and job applications. If you play your cards right, one of those resumes or job applications may be yours.

Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sylvia_Hamric